News

Earlier this year, we welcomed eight Next Gen Ambassadors to the Architects Declare Steering Group, working alongside our trustees. Acting as a vital link between AD and the emerging generation of new architects, they bring fresh perspectives, emerging priorities, and new ideas to our work, while helping share knowledge, opportunities, and learning back with students and early-career professionals. 

Building on the work of our earlier Student Ambassadors, Amy and Anushka, Ayaan, Ayub, Daisy, Eimear, Ola, Riya, Rory and Xan have been working together on research and guidance that we will share towards the end of their year with AD, and on a special event - Designing for 2050: who is responsible? - that will end AD's co-curation with Architecture Today of Regenerative Design 26 throughout October 2026. They have also been engaged in our work on the Regenerative Architecture Index, and on updates to our Regenerative Design Primer and Practice Guide. 

You can read about all eight Next Gen Ambassadors and their ideas in the stories we've been sharing over the past month or so on LinkedIn:

Ayaan Syed

Ayub Abdulkadir

Daisy Shum 

Eimear Kernan 

Olaoluwakitan Olabiyi 

Riya Shah 

Rory Thomas 

Xan Xacobo Goetzee-Barral 

Partnering with others in the Built Environment Declares family of declarations, AD is pleased to share a new collaborative report on the risk of child labour within construction material supply chains.

An estimated 138 million children are engaged in child labour worldwide. Yet, while our sector has made significant progress in addressing the environmental impacts of construction, the social impacts embedded within global supply chains are much less visible. Regenerative practice must consider the full social and environmental consequences of how we design, specify and procure - not just what happens once a building is complete.

Developed with HACE, a specialist organisation dedicated to eradicating child labour, Impacts of Child Labour in Construction Materials: Guidance for Built Environment Professionals combines industry collaboration with expert insight to support practical, child-centred action across supply chains:

• The differences between the UK Modern Slavery Act and child labour
• The construction materials and supply chains where risks are greatest
• Where existing due diligence approaches can fall short
• Practical recommendations for clients, designers and supply-chain organisations to embed child-labour due diligence into procurement and contracts.

We have invited all four candidates in the recently announced election to become President of the RIBA to speak at a special hustings event on 2nd June. We are delighted that all four have agreed to join us at the offices of AHMM in London to debate the relationship of architecture as a profession and discipline to the climate and biodiversity emergency. The event will also be available online.

AD and ACAN! will ask each candidate to include their response to this statement in their opening remarks at the debate:

"We believe that the President of the RIBA must intervene to maximise architects’ agency for positive change on the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency, and demonstrate where government, institutions and industry can lead on systems change towards fully regenerative solutions. All candidates are invited to set out how their presidency would address UK Architects Declare’s principles and ACAN!’s overarching aims."

The four candidates are:

• Duncan Baker-Brown
• Chithra Marsh
• Jay Morton
• Austin Williams

You can find their election statements at RIBA's nominations page - which also presents their short election videos.

Don’t miss your chance to enter! Submit your entry by 18th May.

Launched by Architecture Today and UK Architects Declare, and in partnership with Schüco, the Regenerative Architecture Index (RAI) benchmarks progress in the move towards regenerative practice and projects as we move away from degenerative forms of practice.

Organised around the core themes we established for the first RAI in 2024 and again in 2025, the Index helps architects and others designing our built environment to inspire action and celebrate success, show how participants are tackling obstacles, raise awareness across the profession and the wider industry and support a paradigm shift towards regenerative practice across the sector:

• Being a good ancestor - a shift in mindsets to consider truly long-term thinking. Our decisions today should consider seven generations ahead, ensuring adaptability and flexibility for the future. 
• Co-evolving with nature - recognising that we are part of nature, within integral living systems, not separate from it. Our work should actively regenerate ecosystems by learning from and working with natural systems. 
• Creating a just space for people - providing social connection, economic opportunity and wellbeing for all. Our design processes should foster a shared sense of stewardship where neighbourhoods can self-organise and build their resilience. 

And UK Architects Declare is excited to be working with Architecture Today to develop a special programme of events in October that will include the publication of this year's RAI results. Regenerative Design 2026 is a great opportunity for participants in the 2026 RAI to showcase their work during this month-long exhibition and learning programme at the Building Centre in central London. The programme will include:

• Opening party with the RAI 2026 Results
• A free walk-in exhbition for all built environment professionals and the general public, listing all RAI member organisations along with a curated selection of relevant case studies
• Evening events and talks
• Seminars and round table events.

See Architecture Today for initial information on Regenerative Design 2026.

Today, alongside businesses, professional bodies and organisations from across the UK economy, UK Architects Declare has signed an open letter to Defra Secretary of State Emma Reynolds urging the Government to publish the long-promised Circular Economy Growth Plan without further delay. The open letter was co-ordinated by Green Alliance and signed by more than 50 organisations.

A circular economy is not a future aspiration for the built environment — it is already essential to how we design, retrofit, reuse and build more responsibly. Clear policy direction now would help unlock investment, accelerate material reuse, support green jobs and strengthen resilience across the construction sector and beyond.

At a time of rising environmental and economic pressure, delaying action risks slowing momentum at precisely the moment it needs to accelerate.

We support an ambitious, practical and deliverable strategy that enables long-term thinking across industry, government and communities alike, and are developing AD's policy work following on from our hugely sucessful takeover of the London Eye and gathering at Sustainable Ventures last October for A Circular Revolution.

We were really excited to get such a positive response to our recent call out for Next-Gen Ambassador applications. Such a response in fact, that we are appointing no less than EIGHT ambassadors to form a team of volunteers alongside our Steering Group.

We welcome:

• Ayaan Syed
• Ayub Abdulkadir
• Daisy Shum
• Eimear Kernan
• Olaoluwakitan Olabiyi
• Riya Shah
• Rory Thomas
• Xan Xacobo Goetzee-Barral

Building on our initial Student Ambassador scheme - brilliantly delivered by Amy Thompson and Anushka Gupta - our Next-Gen Ambassadors will:

• Develop our thinking on topics relevant to their studies or current work and future career;
• Help us build the capacity of new and future architects through our programme;
• Generate new insights and knowledge at the forefront of regenerative design and other priorities for our sector.

AD Steering Group member Alasdair Ben Dixon says: “We’ve always known that sharing knowledge across our industry is essential to increasing collective action, and reducing our negative impacts. New voices are essential to that, as they ensure we’re addressing the right issues, and supporting the latest ideas. That’s why we’re excited to be appointing these 8 talented individuals to build on the success of last year’s excellent ambassadors.

"Want to arrange a meeting with our new ambassadors or discuss your practice's journey? Don't hesitate to get in touch!”

Fellow AD Steering Group member Laura Baron, who - along with Alasdair - will act as initial point of support for the new volunteers, says: “We’re thrilled to welcome our new Next-Gen Ambassadors to the Architects Declare family. By bringing together these energetic and engaged individuals, we aim to platform fresh thinking, diverse voices, and future-focused leadership. We strongly believe that empowering the next generation to help shape decisions today will accelerate innovation, challenge outdated practices, and support the creation of places designed for the world that’s coming, not the one we’re leaving behind.”

Watch this space for updates on their progress!

We also thank everyone else who applied for this new role with AD: it was a strong field of candidates, demonstrating the commitment to the principles UK Architects Declare are building on in our programme and partnerships.

We are pleased to share our latest Impact Report, covering our work for 2025.  Our 2025 Impact Report:

• highlights AD's workstreams across the year: Advocacy, Engagement, Guidance, Education, and Paradigm Shift;
• gives an overview of our actions at a glance and how we worked to share our messages;
• shares insights into what signatories and others told us in our first annual survey;
• offers some of impact stories they shared with us.

The short document also looks ahead to our priroties for 2026 and thanks signatories and supporters for their contributions to our work, whether through their expertise and ideas, their voice or their financial support.

Let’s not make the floor the ceiling! The draft NPPF consultation (National Planning Policy Framework) proposes changes that would rewind progress, stifle innovation, and reduce our ability to meet national carbon targets.

The consultation closes on 10th March. We urge AD signatories in England to respond and make clear that national policy must enable and not restrict climate leadership, innovation, and the ability of local authorities to go further where viable.

While there are aspects of these broad-ranging changes that are positive, we want to draw your urgent attention to section PM13 'Setting Standards'.* If adopted this would prevent England's local authorities from setting higher standards (EUI, renewable energy, and related measures). A reliance on Building Regulations, the ‘floor’, is simply the wrong mechanism to use.

Across the UK, local authorities have led the way in raising standards - driving down operational carbon, accelerating industry capability, supporting biodiversity, and providing the market the certainty needed to innovate. This progress has not happened by accident; it has been enabled by local leadership. Countless authorities have been raising the bar and, in doing so, galvanising our industry while reducing carbon and enhancing biodiversity.

At a time when the UK’s net-zero economy is growing three times faster than the overall economy, this is not the moment to retreat. It is not the moment to constrain ambition. And it is certainly not the moment to lock in mediocrity. Why put on the brakes?

* See page 24 of the document, and question 18 in the consultation.

Please get involved!

We support our friends at LETI who are rising to the challenge and ensuring we can respond to this consultation with ease. They have also organised a 45-minut webinar: 'Join LETI’s Call to Action on the NPPF Consultation' on Wednesday 25th February at 1pm. You can register here.

They have also created a template to help us respond to the consultation concentrating on PM13: Consultations | LETI

Do contact us if you would like more information or indeed would like to discuss any of this further.

This year was the 30th annual UN COP climate meeting, and it has become a standard response for climate activists to bemoan the dangerous lack of progress being made each time. This year is no exception. Some clear impacts, such as an absent US delegation, and a visitor ratio of more fossil fuel lobbyists than delegates, emboldened the Petrostates to block the Ending Fossil Fuels Roadmap. This meant that fossil fuels are not mentioned in the final decision, and, despite being a rainforest conference, there was no deforestation roadmap either.

However, some positive moves forward should certainly be highlighted – the conference agreed to triple funding for climate adaption, particularly for developing countries, although this won’t come into force until 2035, leaving them to deal with the consequences of the rest of the world’s actions for another decade. Another important agreement was a plan for a Just Transition Mechanism, to ensure that the move to a green and circular economy is fair and just for all people and communities – but stopped short of attaching funding to the plan. And although a small number of states refused to agree the fossil fuels roadmaps, it is promising that 90 countries have signed up to a voluntary roadmap to end fossil fuels outside of the UN process, whereby they will work together to drive progress.

Former AD Steering Group member Duncan Baker-Brown attended the conference and gave us an account of his experience:

“As co-Chairs of RIBA Climate Emergency Group both Mina Hasman and I were given the opportunity to attend COP30 Brazil in the beautiful City of Belém. Mina attended Week 1 and I was there in Week 2. We have both attended COPs before, and they are often portrayed as a failure, which from the point of view that there appears not to be too much consensus across the United Nations193 member states, is true to a point. However, the UN's strength is also its weakness. The requirement for 193 signatories to approve every decision hides the fact that over 95% of its members would agree to de-couple from relying on fossil fuels today if there was at UN pledge to sign. 

"Also - and this is one of the main motivators for me attending - there is so much good work getting done where peoples of different nations get together to share knowledge and experiences. And this is true of the construction sector that I am part of. One last point. Well done the Brazilian Government for ensuring that protestors (for the most part) were listened to and allowed to make their case and make some beautiful noise right outside the main debating chambers and often within them as well. And thank you to RIBA University of Brighton School of Architecture, Technology and Engineering and my practice BakerBrown for letting me attend.”

Steering Group member Alasdair Ben Dixon, from Collective Works, commented:

“This COP felt dramatic, the 30th edition, from the rainforest, with a fire on day 10, and bold interventions from Panama and Colombia during the final plenary. What stood out in coverage from friends and colleagues on the ground is that this COP needs to be the moment when we commit to implanting the ideas we all have. As our banner states, the Solutions exist – act now.”

The waste generated by the UK construction sector in a single year could fill the River Thames from Imperial Wharf to the Thames Barrier, so it’s crucial that we continue to put pressure on governments and legislators in the UK to push forward the transition to a circular economy and a regenerative industry. Our Building Blocks manifesto and Circular Revolution round-up suggest policy changes and a budget approach collated from an industry-wide consultation, while tools such as the Regenerative Architecture Index allow us to champion the incredible work already being done. 2026 will see us continue these threads, building on our campaigns and advocating for our collective voice to be taken on board and effect real change.

You can read more about COP30 here - from Mina Hasman and Farhana Yamin.

UK Architects Declare is proud to be one of 60+ industry-leading organisations, including Architecture Today, Sustainable Development Foundation, UK Green Building Council, RIBA, and ASBP - Alliance for Sustainable Building Products, supporting Futurebuild 2026. These influential organisations play an integral role in the Futurebuild Knowledge Programme, delivering 133 hours of CPD-accredited content over 3 days across two conferences and multiple seminar stages. AD is working with partners to share special events exploring regenerative practice and a circular built environment. 

In a landmark move for the UK construction sector, Futurebuild and UK Construction Week London will come together from 12–14 May 2026, creating a new national platform for the built environment at Excel London. The events will bring 25,000 built environment professionals, 600+ exhibitors and 700+ speakers across 11 dedicated stages under one roof, making it the largest and most comprehensive construction event in the UK calendar.

Three days of ideas, inspiration, topical discussions and debates on:

• Improving design & safety
• Tackling rising costs
• Meeting ambitious sustainability goals
  

Full details of our events and the full Futurebuild programme coming soon. In the meantime, find out more and register here for your free place.